The  Will  of  Chri^ 
for  the  World 

BY  THE  ,  ’  :  , 

:  \  \ 

Right  Rev.  Charles  P.  Anderson 

Bishop  of  the  Diocese  of  Chicago 


LAYMEN’S  MISSIONARY  MOVEMENT 
1  Madison  Avenue 
New  York 


f  ,4 


;  -»*  / 


i- 


•  >f: 


THE  WILL  OF  CHRIST  FOR  THE  WORLD, 


An  Address  by  the  Right  Rev.  Charles  P.  Anderson, 
Bishop  of  the  Diocese  of  Chicago,  at  the  Men’s 
National  Missionary  Congress,  Chicago, 

May,  1910. 

The  subject  which  has  been  assigned  to  me  is, 
“The  Will  of  Christ  for  the  World.”  It  is  a  subject 
which  one  ought  to  approach  on  one’s  knees.  It 
is  an  awful  responsibility  to  undertake  to  interpret  the 
mind  of  Christ  for  the  world.  Fortunately,  we  are  not 
left  to  our  own  resources ;  we  do  not  have  to  guess 
at  it.  We  do  not  have  to  depend  on  any  mental 
process  of  ratiocination.  It  does  not  have  to  be 
evolved  out  of  our  inner  consciousness.  We  have 
only  to  listen  to  the  divine  authoritative  voice,  and 
then  interpret  that  voice  in  the  language  of  practical 
obedience. 

I  shall  venture  to  interpret  the  will  of  Christ  for 
the  world,  so  far  as  the  purposes  of  this  gathering 
are  concerned,  in  two  words.  They  are  Universality 
and  Unity — the  universality  of  the  religion  of  Jesus 
Christ,  the  unity  of  the  Christian  Church.  I  take  it 
that  there  are  no  two  things  that  stand  out  more 
prominently  in  the  pages  of  the  New  Testament  than 
these.  First,  that  the  religion  of  Christ  is  for  the 
whole  world ;  and  secondly,  that  there  is  to  be  oneness 
on  the  part  of  the  disciples  of  Christ,  in  order  that 
the  whole  world  may  know  and  believe. 

First,  universality.  I  do  not  have  to  argue  it  in 
this  gathering.  It  is  an  axiom.  It  is  a  postulate.  It 
is  the  very  central  belief  of  our  religion.  Christ  is 
the  Son  of  God.  “God  has  made  of  one  blood  all 
nations  of  men  to  dwell  on  the  face  of  the  whole 


2  The  Will  of  Christ  for  the  World 


earth.”  Whatsoever  God  purposes  through  Christ  for 
any  part  of  the  world,  he  purposes  for  all  parts  of 
the  world.  Christ  belongs  to  no  nation,  but  to  all 
nations ;  to  no  race,  but  to  all  races ;  to  no  age,  but 
to  all  ages.  He  is  not  simply  a  man,  but  Man,  uni¬ 
versal  Man;  not  a  god,  but  God  incarnate  for  all 
humanity.  “God  of  God,  Light  of  Light,  who  for 
us  men  and  for  our  salvation  was  made  Man.”  And 
if  we  come  away  from  the  somewhat  stiff  statements 
of  theological  language  to  the  mellower  language  of 
the  New  Testament,  we  find  that  every  page  is  full 
of  the  same  idea.  “God  so  loved  the  world,”  not  a 
portion  of  it,  but  the  whole  world,  “that  he  gave  his 
only  begotten  Son.”  “Come  unto  me  all  ye  that  labour 
and  are  heavy  laden.”  “Go  into  all  the  world  and 
preach  the  gospel  to  all  nations,  baptizing  them  in 
the  name  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the 
Holy  Ghost.”  Men  sometimes  speak  of  “Christ  and 
other  Masters ;  ”  Christ  alone  is  Master  and  all  others 
are  brethren.  Christ  has  no  competitors.  Christ 
has  no  rivals.  “There  is  none  other  name  given  under 
Heaven  whereby  man  can  be  saved  but  the  name  of 
Jesus  Christ.”  “In  the  name  of  Jesus,  every  knee 
shall  bow.” 

This  does  not  involve  that  you  and  I  deny  that 
the  non-Christian,  ethnic  faiths  of  the  world  have  any 
ethical  or  moral  value.  We  rejoice  when  we  find  that 
they  have.  God  has  not  left  himself  without  witnesses. 
In  every  nation  the  people  have  some  idea  of  God, 
some  consciousness  of  right  and  wrong,  some  glim¬ 
mering  of  immortality.  In  some  cases  they  exist  in 
a  very  rude  and  crude  form  and  lead  to  all  kinds  of 
fantastic  cruelties  in  the  name  of  religion.  In  some 
cases  they  exist  in  a  more  developed  form.  That  is 
our  starting  point.  The  Christian  missionaries,  like 


The  Will  of  Christ  for  the  World 


3 


Christ,  came  not  to  destroy  but  to  fulfil.  We  hold 
that  Christ  is  the  logical  and  inevitable  outcome  of 
all  religions.  As  Saint  Augustine  said,  “Men  are 
naturally  Christians.”  We  hold  that  there  is  in  every 
man  certain  instincts  and  intuitions  and  endowments 
which,  if  given  a  proper  environment  and  proper  culti¬ 
vation,  will  inevitably  lead  up  to  his  being  a  Christian 
man.  “If  ye  believe  in  God,  believe  also  in  Me.” 

We  do  not  seek  to  destroy  the  good  that  people 
already  have ;  but  to  lead  them  from  what  they  have 
to  what  they  have  not.  “Whom  ye  ignorantly  worship, 
him  declare  we  unto  you.”  The  goal  of  the  Christian 
religion  is  Christ.  It  is  not  a  question  of  whether 
there  are  good  things  in  their  sacred  books,  or 
whether  they  have  some  virtues,  or  whether  they  or 
we  have  an  open  Bible,  or  whether  a  Church  organi¬ 
zation  exists.  The  great  question  is,  have  they, 
have  we,  Christ?  That  is  the  goal.  “He  that  hath 
the  Son  hath  life,  and  he  that  hath  not  the  Son  of 
God  hath  not  life.”  “I  am  come  that  ye  might  have 
life  and  that  ye  might  have  it  more  abundantly.”  I 
am  thankful  that  we  do  not  have  to  argue  this  propo¬ 
sition  in  this  presence.  It  is  of  the  very  essence  of 
the  gospel  of  Christ  that  it  is  a  universal  gospel. 

But  the  universality  of  the  Christian  religion  not 
only  rests  upon  our  claims  for  Christ,  but  also  upon 
the  fact  that  it  has  demonstrated  its  fitness  to  be  the 
universal  religion,  and  its  power  to  be  the  universal 
religion.  Just  think  of  a  few  broad  facts.  Christianity 
was  born  in  the  world  at  a  time  when  there  were  many 
ancient  civilizations.  Egypt  had  seen  great  days. 
Babylon  had  been  mighty.  Greece  had  reached  a  high 
pinnacle  of  fame.  Rome  had  seen  some  proud  and 
imperial  times.  China  had  at  that  time  an  ancient 
civilization.  These  civilizations  had  failed  to  save 


4 


The  Will  of  Christ  for  the  World 


them.  And  Christianity,  in  less  than  two  thousand 
years,  practising  upon  decadent  civilizations,  or  upon 
barbarous  civilizations,  has  in  a  short  space  of  time 
brought  these  nations  in  which  it  has  operated,  away 
ahead  of  all  the  ancient  civilizations.  It  is  indubitably 
true  that  the  Christian  religion  injects  certain  inex¬ 
tinguishable  elements  into  human  society,  with  the  con¬ 
sequence  that  the  Christian  nations  make  much  more 
progress  in  all  the  high  things  of  life  than  all  the 
other  nations  of  the  world. 

Let  us  take  a  brief  but  striking  illustration ;  let 
us  contrast  Christianity  with  Mohammedanism.  Free¬ 
man  says  in  his  book  upon  the  Saracens  that  “Moham¬ 
medanism  has  consecrated  despotism ;  has  consecrated 
polygamy;  has  consecrated  slavery.”  Now,  contrast 
the  influence  of  Christianity  with  that.  Is  it  not  true 
that  Christianity  has  consecrated  liberty,  not  despo¬ 
tism  ;  it  has  consecrated  monogamy,  not  polygamy ;  it 
has  abolished  slavery.  Christianity  at  an  early  date 
touched  that  ancient  civilization  of  Greece.  It  was 
at  a  decadent  period.  Her  art  and  her  architecture 
had  not  saved  her.  Her  poets  and  her  orators,  her 
philosophers  and  her  statesmen  had  not  saved  her. 
Bear  in  mind  that  Christianity  overtook  that  civiliza¬ 
tion  at  a  time  when  it  was  doomed  to  absolute  de¬ 
struction.  What  saved  it  from  destruction?  What 
preserved  the  national  life  in  spite  of  most  appalling 
calamities?  What  saved  that  little  country  of  Greece 
from  Ottoman  tyranny,  from  the  Moslem  scimitar, 
from  external  disaster,  from  her  own  internal  cor¬ 
ruption?  Why,  if  we  can  believe  such  thoughtful 
students  as  Freeman  and  Finley  and  Stanley,  nothing 
else  preserved  the  continuity  of  that  country  than  the 
introduction  into  it  of  the  Christian  religion.  Go  into 
that  country  today,  and  though  you  may  find  many 


The  Will  of  Christ  for  the  World 


things  that  are  not  admirable,  though  one  may  find 
that  they  are  very  short  of  having  attained  anything 
like  the  highest  standard  of  Christian  life,  neverthe¬ 
less,  if  you  pick  out  the  strong  things,  the  enduring 
things,  the  things  that  have  saved  them,  they  have 
been  the  things  that  were  not  born  within  themselves, 
but  the  things  which  Christianity  contributed  to  them. 
That  religion  brought  to  them  at  a  perilous  time  cer¬ 
tain  principles  that  appealed  to  them — the  eternity 
of  God,  the  brotherhood  of  man  through  Jesus  Christ, 
and  though  their  armies  might  be  destroyed,  though 
terrible  calamities  might  ensue,  they  imbibed  those 
Christian  principles  which  have  held  that  nation  to¬ 
gether. 

Come  over  to  the  civilization  of  the  Latin  races. 
Bear  in  mind  that  we  are  contrasting  the  efifects  of 
religion  in  a  civilization  that  was  decadent,  at  a  time 
of  political  weakness,  with  other  religions  at  the  height 
of  civilization  and  at  the  height  of  political  power. 
It  is  not  putting  our  religion  to  a  proper  advantage, 
and  yet  it  can  stand  the  test.  Compare  the  great 
men,  the  ideals,  the  poets  of  the  Latin  races  after 
Christianity  was  introduced,  with  the  ideals  and 
the  poets  and  the  great  men  of  the  Roman  Em¬ 
pire  prior  to  the  time  of  the  birth  of  Christ  or 
the  missionary  labours  of  St.  Paul.  Compare,  if 
you  will,  a  Virgil  with  a  Dante.  Does  not  Dante 
have  something  grander  and  sublimer ;  did  he  not 
have  visjons  which  the  great  poet  Virgil  never  saw 
because  he  had  never  heard  of  a  Christ?  Compare 
St.  Augustine  with  Marcus  Aurelius.  We  do  not 
care  to  minimize  the  virtues  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  but 
is  it  not  true  that  Augustine  penetrated  down  deeper, 
that  he  reached  up  higher,  that  he  saw  things  that 
Marcus  Aurelius  never  saw?  Compare  such  a  man 


6 


The  Will  of  Christ  for  the  World 


as  St.  Francis  d’ Assisi  with  a  Seneca  or  an  Epictetus. 
Think  of  the  great  Latin  doctors  that  have  made  their 
contributions  to  Christian  literature.  Think  of  their 
great  saints,  men  and  women.  Think  of  their  great 
hymns.  Think  of  their  great  prayers.  Is  there  any¬ 
thing  in  the  ancient  Roman  world,  with  all  its  might 
and  power  and  organization,  that  ever  produced  such 
types  of  men  as  Christianity  produced? 

Take  our  own  civilization.  Christianity  overtook 
us  at  a  time  when  our  forefathers  were  rude  bar¬ 
barians.  Where  did  we  get  our  ideas  of  God,  our 
ideas  of  truth,  of  honour,  of  purity,  of  charity,  of 
home,  of  wife,  of  child,  of  mother?  You  say  they 
came  as  the  result  of  civilization.  What  is  civilization 
but  the  humanization  of  men,  but  where  did  the 
humanization  power  come  from?  They  are  nothing 
more  or  less  than  the  direct  contribution  of  the  re¬ 
ligion  of  Jesus  Christ  to  the  humanity  that  we  share. 

Yes,  the  greatest  power  in  the  world  has  been 
the  power  of  Christ.  His  work  is  not  yet  completed, 
but  it  is  working  towards  completeness.  He  has  given 
birth  to  spiritual  kingdoms.  He  has  laid  the  corner¬ 
stone  of  our  highest  civilization.  He  has  revivified 
old  dead  maxims  into  living  realities.  He  has  scat¬ 
tered  the  face  of  the  earth  with  principles  that  were 
based  upon  the  eternal  love  of  the  eternal  Father. 
He  has  been  the  preacher  of  liberty,  fraternity  and 
equality.  He  has  abolished  slavery  from  our  midst. 
He  has  inspired  our  best  literature.  He  has^  founded 
institutions  of  learning.  He  has  been  giving  new  con¬ 
ceptions  of  sin,  new  ideas  of  duty,  and  new  hopes  of 
immortality.  He  has  be.en  consecrating  childhood,  he 
has  been  dignifying  womanhood,  he  has  been  sanctify¬ 
ing  our  homes,  he  has  been  helping  the  poor,  he  has 
been  delivering  people  from  the  oppressor,  he  has 


The  Will  of  Christ  for  the  World 


7 


been  lifting  people  by  the  thousands,  one  by  one, 
one  by  one,  out  of  the  dung-hill  of  their  sins  and  caus¬ 
ing  them  to  throw  themselves  upon  the  all-redeeming 
love  of  the  Saviour  of  the  world.  Notwithstanding 
the  faults  that  can  be  found  in  the  administration  of 
the  Christian  Church,  notwithstanding  the  weakness 
that  can  be  found  there,  the  most  magnificent,  the 
most  pervasive,  the  greatest  power  in  the  direction  of 
all  that  is  highest  in  human  life  has  been  Christ  and 
the  Christian  Church.  Every  altar  that  is  erected  is 
consecrated  to  the  truth  that  sets  men  free.  Every 
tower  that  is  built  rests  upon  the  eternal  Rock  of 
Ages.  Every  spire  points  men  to  the  highest  things, 
to  their  future  home,  and  heaven  and  God. 

Obliterate  Christianity  out  of  the  world,  strike  it 
out  of  our  literature,  burn  up  your  Bibles,  throttle 
the  choirs,  hush  up  the  preacher’s  voice,  break  down 
the  altars,  take  away  these  things,  and  there  is  no 
archangel  that  would  be  sufficiently  eloquent  to  depict 
the  horribleness  and  the  vastness  of  the  catastrophe 
that  would  ensue.  In  spite  of  our  faults  we  can 
sing  the  old  psalm :  “O  that  men  would  praise  the 
Lord  for  his  goodness,  and  declare  the  wonders  that 
he  doeth  for  the  children  of  men.” 

So  I  say  that  we  start  out  in  this  Congress  first 
with  the  conviction  that  Christ  is  universal ;  that  the 
Christian  religion  is  to  be  universal ;  that  it  has  the 
power  of  being  universal ;  and  that  it  is  the  most 
potential  thing  for  righteousness  that  the  world  has 
ever  seen.  That  is  the  first  part  of  our  programme. 

And  now  unity.  Of  course,  unity  is  not  uni¬ 
formity.  Unity  is  not  unanimity  of  opinion.  Unity  is 
not  platform  agreement.  Unity  is  not  a  federation 
of  separated  churches ;  nor  is  it  organic  separation 
and  rivalry.  Unity  is  that  oneness  in  the  visible  body 


8 


The  Will  of  Christ  for  the  World 


of  Christ  that  makes  men  know  and  believe.  This,  of 
course,  is  not  the  time  or  the  place  to  discuss  unity 
as  a  platform.  It  is  not  the  time  or  the  place  to  say 
a  single  word  of  a  controversial  character.  Neither 
is  it  the  time  nor  the  place  for  any  of  us  to  say 
foolish  things  for  the  sake  of  saying  perhaps  the 
popular  things ;  but  I  fear  one  cannot  discuss  the 
subject,  “The  Will  of  Christ  for  the  World,”  without 
touching  unity.  And  you  and  I  cannot  consider  the 
most  statesmanlike,  the  most  economic,  the  most  effi¬ 
cient  methods  of  missionary  administration  without 
considering  unity. 

It  is  well  for  us  to  remember  that  the  greatest 
triumphs  that  the  Christian  Church  has  ever  won 
were  in  the  days  when  the  Church  was  one.  It  is 
well  for  us  to  remember  that  the  greatest  triumphs 
that  Christianity  has  ever  won,  were  won,  shall  I  say, 
before  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  were  written,  or  the 
Westminster  Confession,  or  the  Augsburg  Confes¬ 
sion.  And  the  greatest  triumphs  that  Christianity  is 
going  to  win  will  be  the  triumphs  of  a  united  Christian 
discipleship. 

Let  me  take  you  to  a  little  town  not  very  far 
from  Chicago.  It  has  but  thirteen  hundred  popula¬ 
tion,  men,  women  and  children.  It  has  nine  churches. 
Some  of  these  nine  churches  are  being  supported  by 
contributions  from  home  mission  boards.  There  are 
fifty-five  per  cent,  of  the  men  of  that  town  that  do 
not  belong  to  any  of  the  nine.  But  why?  Because 
they  are  so  feeble,  necessarily  so  feeble  when  they 
divide  thirteen  hundred  souls  among  nine  of  them — 
they  are  all  necessarily  so  feeble  as  not  to  be  com¬ 
manding  exponents  of  the  Christian  religion  in  the 
town  in  which  they  exist.  Does  the  number  of  re¬ 
ligions  increase  the  amount  of  religion?  Is  there 


The  Will  of  Christ  for  the  World 


9 


not  a  danger  that  these  labels  become  libels  on  true 
Christianity  ? 

Let  me  take  you  to  another  town  not  so  very 
far  from  Chicago.  It  is  a  larger  town.  It  has  thirty- 
two  churches  in  it,  thirty-two  separate  organizations. 
I  am  told  some  of  these  churches  are  in  need  of 
support  from  the  home  missionary  boards,  when  any¬ 
thing  like  Christian  statesmanship  would  strengthen 
the  church  in  that  town  and  make  it  a  contributory 
force  to  spreading  the  gospel  throughout  all  the  world. 
I  believe  that  we  are  wasting  more  money  through 
overlapping,  through  dove-tailing,  through  rivalries, 
than  would  evangelize  a  whole  race  in  a  single  genera¬ 
tion.  Is  it  wise?  Is  it  statesmanlike?  Is  it  Christian? 

I  would  be  the  very  last  person  to  put  forward 
the  economic  argument  as  one  of  the  first  arguments 
on  behalf  of  Christian  unity.  Better  have  five  hun¬ 
dred  churches,  each  one  with  its  own  truths  and  its 
own  spiritual  convictions,  than  one  united  church  at 
the  sacrifice  of  a  single  truth,  or  of  a  single  spiritual 
reality.  Better  waste  a  million  dollars  than  to  sacri¬ 
fice  a  spiritual  experience  or  a  precious  truth.  But  is 
it  necessary  either  to  waste  money  on  the  one  hand  or 
to  sacrifice  convictions  on  the  other?  I  am  quite  sure 
that  many  of  us  have  been  approaching  the  subject 
wrong-end  first.  We  have  been  asking  what  can  we 
give  up  in  the  interests  of  unity.  That  is  not  the 
question.  It  is  not  what  we  can  give  up,  but  what 
can  we  give?  You  have  no  right  to  give  up  anything 
that  you  have  had  that  ever  has  been  of  value,  that  is 
of  value,  or  that  is  likely  to  be  of  value.  You  have  no 
right  to  give  up  anything  that  has  ever  received  the 
divine  sanction  or  the  divine  approval.  It  is  not  what 
we  can  give  up,  but  what  we  can  give.  I  have  a  hor¬ 
ror  of  that  kind  of  unity  that  would  be  based  on  a 


10 


The  Will  of  Christ  for  the  World 


sort  of  residuum.  I  am  not  attracted  by  unity  on 
the  basis  of  an  irreducible  minimum.  I  do  not  want 
to  belong  to  a  Church  of  minimums.  I  want  to  be¬ 
long  to  a  Church  of  maximums.  Maximum  beliefs, 
maximum  duties,  maximum  sacrifices.  The  Church  of 
minimums  is  incapable  of  producing  martyrdoms. 
There  are  things  that  we  can  give  up,  but  nobody  is 
asking  anybody  to  give  up  anything  that  is  of  value. 
We  can  give  up  pride.  We  can  give  up  our  ecclesias¬ 
tical  conceit.  We  can  give  up  our  denominational 
jealousies.  We  can  give  up  our  inherited  prejudices. 
And  perhaps  by  the  grace  of  God  we  can  give  up 
some  of  our  ignorance.  I  lay  this  down,  brethren, 
as  a  proposition  that  has  already  demonstrated  itself, 
Christlike  Christians  cannot  stay  apart.  Take  this 
Laymen‘s  Missionary  Movement.  To  me  the  most 
significant  thing  about  it  is  this,  that  as  I  see  it,  all 
kinds  of  Christians,  Roman  Christians,  if  they  would. 
Oriental  Christians,  Anglican  Christians,  Protestant 
Christians  of  every  name  can,  without  a  single  scruple 
of  conscience,  come  and  take  their  part  and  their 
portion  in  this  great  enterprise. 

Why?  It  is  because  we  have  all  got  the  same 
central  unity  up  to  this  point.  We  all  believe  in 
Christ.  We  believe  that  the  world  is  for  him,  and  we 
believe  that  he  has  come  to  have  the  whole  world. 
Glory  be  to  God !  That  at  the  end  of  two  thousand 
years,  in  spite  of  bitter  controversies,  and  interminable 
logomachies  and  almost  bloody  religious  warfare, 
Christians  throughout  the  whole  world  can  get  to¬ 
gether  on  that  platform :  Christ  for  the  world  and 
the  world  for  Christ.  There  is  more  unity  than  we 
think.  The  things  that  separate  Christians  are  in¬ 
consequential  in  comparison  with  that  that  separates 
Christians  from  non-Christians.  “He  that  hath  the 


The  Will  of  Christ  for  the  World 


11 


Son,  hath  life,  and  he  that  hath  not  the  Son  of  God 
hath  not  life/’ 

Well,  that  is  our  programme.  The  universality  of 
the  Christian  religion  and  the  ultimate  unity  of  the 
Church  of  Christ.  Isn’t  it  a  big  enough  programme? 
Is  the  world  big  enough  for  you  ?  Is  Christ  attractive 
enough  for  you? 

“Ashamed  of  Jesus,  can  it  be, 

A  mortal  man  ashamed  of  thee?” 

Let  us  rigidly  and  loyally  adhere  to  that  pro¬ 
gramme  in  spite  of  the  worldliness  of  the  Church,  in 
spite  of  the  unbelief  and  the  half-belief  of  our  Chris¬ 
tian  membership,  in  spite  of  our  cold  love  and  our 
painless  sacrifices,  in  spite  of  the  absolutely  un- 
Christian  talk  that  we  hear  from  the  pews  that  they 
do  not  believe  in  missions,  in  spite  of  everything,  let 
us  not  pull  down  the  flag  one  inch.  Christ  is  for  the 
whole  world  and  the  whole  world  for  Christ.  And 
as  a  means  to  that  end  let  us  all  be  prophets  of 
unity,  priests  of  unity,  apostles  of  unity.  We  can  do 
that  much  at  any  rate.  We  can  say  of  unity  as  we 
say  of  universality — we  can  if  we  will;  we  can  and 
we  will. 

May  I  conclude  by  throwing  these  thoughts  into 
the  most  efficient  language  which  I  know,  the  language 
of  prayer. 

O  God,  who  has  made  of  one  blood  all  nations 
of  men  to  dwell  on  the  face  of  the  whole  earth,  and 
has  sent  thy  Son,  Jesus  Christ,  to  preach  peace  to 
them  that  are  afar  off  and  to  them  that  are  nigh,  grant 
that  all  men  everywhere  may  seek  after  thee  and 
find  thee.  Bring  the  nations  into  thy  fold,  and  add 
the  heathen  to  thine  inheritance.  And  we  pray  thee 
shortly  to  accomplish  the  number  of  thine  elect,  and 
to  hasten  thy  kingdom.  Give  us  grace  seriously  to 


12 


The  Will  of  Christ  for  the  World 


lay  to  heart  the  great  dangers  that  we  are  in  by  our 
unhappy  division.  Take  away  from  us  all  pride,  envy, 
jealousy,  hatred  and  uncharitableness  and  anything 
that  hinders  godly  union  and  concord ;  that  as  there 
is  but  one  Lord,  one  faith,  one  baptism,  one  God  and 
Father  of  us  all,  so  we  may  be  all  of  one  heart  and 
of  one  soul,  united  in  one  holy  bond  of  truth  and 
peace,  of  faith  and  charity,  and  may  with  one  mind 
and  one  mouth  glorify  thee,  the  only  God,  through 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.  Amen. 

May  our  lex  credendi  always  be  our  lex  orandi. 


